06/27/2020
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Five years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the right to same-sex marriage. That evening, thousands of people gathered to celebrate in front of the White House, decked out in every color of the rainbow. Malia and I couldn’t just sit inside and watch this moment pass us by. So we snuck past the Secret Service agents in the White House, past our wonderful kitchen staff and into the humid air of a D.C. summer night. We joined in with everyone as anonymously as we could, just two more proud Americans cheering on progress and the simple—and newly constitutionally protected—fact: love is love.
I’ll never forget that evening. Not only was it the culmination of decades of hard work and struggle from countless LGBTQ+ activists, it had come during a particularly heavy week for many Americans. Earlier that day, Barack and I had attended the funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, South Carolina. Here was another instance of thousands of people coming together—this time in mourning of the nine beautiful souls we lost at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church—to share in their grief, their resilience, and their hope for a better world. It was a terrible tragedy, bound up in the sin of racial hatred. And yet—we all left that service overwhelmed by grace. Amazing grace.
Thinking back to that day reminds me of how much strength we can find in one another, in good times and in bad. We’ve seen it again over these past few weeks. Our grief and anger have been channeled into passionate protests. Lifelong organizers and first-time marchers of all backgrounds are joining hands and pushing for change. And we’re beginning to have new conversations, and see the start of some real, measurable progress. It makes me think back to nights like this one, five years ago today—a night that reminds us that the fight is worth it. Because a fairer, more just, and more loving world is always possible.
